Building construction



July 14, 1942.

B. s. TURNER BUILDING CONSTRUCTION Filed March 12. 1940 Ian-nor v Patented July 14, 1942 a UNITED STATES PATENT. OFFICE 2,289,469 BUILDING CONSTRUCTION Benjamin S. Turner, El. Paso, Tex. Application March 12, 1940, Serial No. 323,618 i 2 Claims. (01. 139-34) This invention relates to improvements in building construction, one. of its outstandingpurposes being both to facilitate the erection of a building and to render the walls, floors, ceilings and the like as. nearly fireproof as is ordinarily possible.

The objects of the invention are:

First, to provide a, building construction which eventuates primarily in a panel configuration, whether said configuration is awall or a ceiling, the panels being formed preferably of non-inflammable materials. 7

Second, to provide a building construction wherein the fillers are readily emplaced in position and then held without separate fasteners.

Third, to provide a building construction I wherein the. fillers. are permissibly of reasonably different widths and therefore capable of being fitted into the panel formation without the necessity of trimming. 1

Fourth, to provide a 1 building construction wherein the studs or equivalent vspanners are made of corrugated material for thedoublep'urpose of strengthening said material considerably,

and of providing anchor flutes for theemplaced fillers.

Fifth, to provide a structural beam'embodying a corrugated central section for the purpose of multiplying the factor of strength, the principle of corrugation being applicable to all types of beams such as I, L, 2 channel and other shapes, and capable of use in both interior and exterior building constructions. f

Other objects of this inventionwill appear in the following specification, reference being bad to the accompanying drawing, in which:

Figure 1 is a side elevation of a portion of a wall panel, generally illustrating the scheme of the invention.

Figure 2 is a fractional wall panel.

Figure 3 is a cross-section taken on the line 33 of Fig. 1. I

Figure 4 is a detail tion of a floor sill.

Figure 5 is a cross-section illustrating the embodiment of the invention in a floor or ceilmg.

Figure 6 is a detail perspective view of a floor unit.

Figure 7 is a cross section illustrating the use of modified Z-beams or connectors for the retention of the panels.

Figure 1 illustrates a panel configuration genperspective view of the perspective view of a porbe used as suggested before.

a wall panel, but as previously indicated, the identical structural principles are employed in the making of either wall, floor or ceiling units, or panels for. other parts of the building either inside or outside. The panel comprises a cap piece 2 and a sill 3.

These members ordinarily comprise plain channels as illustrated in Fig. 2. Said channels are in the confronting relationship shown in (Fig. 1) so that the flanges 4, 5, of the channels can be used to assistin the securement of a plurality of connectors B.

The connectors 6 will be recognized as the substitutes for the conventional studs. Being such,

they are fairly regularly placed in the horizontal direction, and are secured perpendicularly to the cap piece and sill. Spot welds 1 (Fig. 2,) are used as a convenientway by which to do the securing. These welds are applied both along the bottoms of the channels and at the flanges, thereby to hold the connectors rigidly in place. Considerable importance attaches to the nature of these connectors. They are desirably made of light-gauge metal, and virtually of any of the standard shapes such as I, L, 2 channel, etc.

If of channel shape they include the flanges 8, 9, (Fig. 2) but the latter flange is a part of a decided curve I 0 which, in turn, is one element of a system of corrugations l I into which the web of the connector is formed. These corrugations provide flutes or valleys H! on the opposite sides of the connector web.

Said flutes add materially to the strength of the connectors so that a. light gauge metal can For instance, it has. been .found that a beam of 16 gauge metal (.063), formed with a corrugated central section and loaded according to any common method, proved quite as. strong as an ordinary A" channel iron. Thus said connector or beam com.- prises an important building unit, and one of its purposes of importance is the useof the flutes as the holding means for the fillers l3. These fillers are either made in sections, as at M (Fig. 1), or may comprise substantially full length members reaching from the sill 3 to the cap piece 4.

erally designated I. This is herein regarded as The flutes l2 confront each other across the spaces between the connectors 6. When the corrugations ll comprise the simple ogee curves illustrated in Figs. 2 and 3, a matching pair of flutes l2 will result in the emplacement of the filler I3 in the diagonal position shown. The particular position of the fillers is not material because, as will presently be pointed out, the

corrugations can be made on such an order that the fillers will stand virtually parallel to the directions of the ceiling and cap piece.

The filler [3 will be made of fireproof material. It is not necessarily so made in all instances, but fireproof substances will obviously be necessary in the erection of a fireproof panel. Even in the event of the panel I3 being quite stiff it is, nevertheless, flexible enough to permit suflicient bending in order to get the filler into the position shown.

For example, the right edge a of the filler 13 (Fig. 2), can be slipped behind the flange 9 of one of the connectors H, the other edge I) being placed against the curve ll] of the next connector. By pushing inwardly on the filler at its approximate center there will be enough bending of the filler to force edge 12 over the crown of the curve I so that the filler will snap into the diagonal position shown because of its edges a, b then being pocketed in the confronting flutes [2.

It is not necessary for the filler I3 to be held tightlyin said flutes. Nor is it necessary for each filler to be exactly the same width. There is room for variation in both respects, the underlying purposes being to emplace the filler, to make a fairly tight closure of the. space between the connectors and to, hold the filler in place without any fasteners other than the holding function performed by the flutes.

Reference is now made to Fig. 4, which is to be regarded as either a cap piece or floor sill. In the event of its being a floor sill, the body or web is centrally corrugated at 16in the longitudinal direction to materially increase the strength of the member. These corrugations tend to resist buckling, and the strength which they impart to the member enables making the member of lighter gauge material than would otherwise benecessary. When amember of this nature is used in the panel formation (Fig. 1) the spanners or connectors 6 would be fitted in and secured by welds as above.

In Fig. 5 all parts agree with the arrangement inFig. 3 with the exception that the corrugations lla are made more numerous. The flutes in are closer together as a consequence, thereby enabling the emplacement of the fillers l3 substantially in line with the sill and cap piece, or in substantial parallelism therewith as mentioned before.

The fillers emplaced according to the latter plan are illustrated in full lines (Fig. 5). The provision of multiple flutes carries with it another advantage, namely, the permissible use of fillers which vary considerably as to width. The dotted line position 0 denotes one of these variations; if the filler is too Wide to fit between one pair of flutes, it can be adjusted in position to fit some other pair.

Thefloor unit in Fig. 6 comprises a pair of joist channels I! which are held spaced apart by a series of spanners [B which will be recognizedas the equivalent of the connectors 6 in Fig. l. The ends of the spanners are spotwelded to the joist channels at 19, and they are located at approximately even distances apart.

Said spanners [8 are also of cross-sectional ogee curvature. This agrees with the corrugated formation of the connector webs in Fig. 3. The resulting flutes 20 provide the holding means for the fillers 2|, precisely on the same order as in the modifications before given. It can be readily understood that a wall, floor, ceiling or other panel adapted for embodiment in a building can be constructed with fair rapidity, especially when it comes to the emplacement of the fillers. The resulting construction is extremely satisfactory from the standpoints of its being durable and fireproof.

Fig. '7 illustrates the use of Z-bar connectors 6b in place of the channel shapes 6 in Fig. 3. The former have equivalent flanges 8b, 917, but are characteristically extended in opposite directions from the main body of the respective bar. This makes for ease in the application of the insulating fillers l3b to the flutes l2b of the central corrugated sections lib. Laths and plaster may be applied directly to the opposite sides of the vertical studs or a composition board may be secured thereto as is well known in the art.

Where floors are mnufactured in accordance with the present construction cement may be applied to the spaces between members l1, l8 and 2|, as shown in Fig. 6.

I claim:

1. A building construction panel comprising a pair of members in spaced apart relationship, spaced apart connectors spanning the space between said members and secured to said members, each connector having at least a pair of concave portions, one of the concave portions be ing located adjacent one edge of the connector. the other concave portion being located adjacent the other edge and facing oppositely to the first concave portion so that .the concave portion in one face of a connector of a pair will be diagonally disposed with the concave portion of the confronting face of the other connector and diagonally disposed filler means located in the spaces between the connectors and having one longitudinal edge seated within a concave portion of one connector adjacent one edge thereof while the other edge of the filler means is seated within the concave portion of the confronting connector, the last mentioned concave portion being adjacent that edge of the confronting connector which is diagonally disposed with the first mentioned connector edge.

2. A building construction panel comprising a pair of members in spaced apart relationship, spaced apart connectors spanning the space between said members and secured to said members, each connector having at least a pair of oppositely disposed concave portions, the concave portion in the face of one connector of a pair being diagonally disposed with respect to the concave portion in a confronting face of the other connector, and a filler plate diagonally disposed between each pair of connectors and having the longitudinal edges thereof received by the concave portions with said edges of the plate in frictional contact with said concave portions.

BENJAMIN S. TURNER. 

